In its first year of operation — with the support of our entire Service Engineering organization and others in Commercial Aviation Services — the center has handled an average of 55 service requests each day and fielded some 150 phone calls. When we first opened the center, we responded to more than 80 percent of customer requests within the time the customer expected. A year later, that same metric now stands at more than 90 percent. And we continue to make improvements to bring us closer to 100 percent on-time performance.

In some ways, the Operations Center can be viewed as a physical manifestation of Boeing’s continued commitment to customer support and how we are more closely aligning our operation to match the way you do business. You told us that you were looking for this type of centralized support because airlines and others in the industry use these centers in their own operations to improve performance. Operations centers are now the industry standard.

Our Operations Center is an outgrowth of the Rapid Response Center, which we formed in 1999 to provide commercial airplane operators with support during nights, weekends, and holidays. The Rapid Response Center’s off-hours capability supplemented the ongoing daytime support of our technical experts in Service Engineering. Now, with our Operations Center, all urgent requests — day or night — are coordinated through one centralized area — with the goal of providing you, our valued customer, with better quality responses in shorter time.

The engineering staff at the Operations Center uses the latest technology to track, minute-by-minute, the status of urgent in-service requests from airlines around the world.

How the center works
When you contact the Operations Center, you talk with a controller, who is responsible for all incoming work to the center. You and the controller discuss and define the issue. The controller then works with functional leads — representing structures, systems, spares, and other disciplines — to develop options to resolve the issue. Following this collaboration, you and the controller reach a joint decision on the optimum solution. Boeing then starts work to fulfill your request within the agreed-upon time, and the performance of the center is measured against that exact time — to the minute — until the job is complete.

How to submit requests
There are three ways that customers submit requests to the Operations Center:

• Through their local Field Service representative, who submits the request directly into the Boeing Communication System.
• Through the MyBoeingFleet.com Web portal using the technical in-service request.
• By e-mail to boc.boecom@boeing.com.

Customers may follow up their request with a telephone call to the Operations Center at 206-544-7500, or wait for one of the controllers on duty to call when the controller receives the request.

• To ensure that urgent AOG requests are routed directly to the Operations Center, customers are asked to clearly label requests as “AOG” and identify the product type as “airplane” or “flight operations.”
• Requests should include an available point of contact who has both a complete understanding of the situation and is in a position to decide how to proceed.
• The most complete information about the incident should be included whenever possible: sketches, photographs, clear requirements, the airplane return-to-service date (or time), affected part numbers if known, and ATA chapter-section numbers. These all will help expedite our response to you.

You can find out more at our Operations Center Web site at
www.boeing.com/commercial/global/opscenter.html.

If you haven’t already had the opportunity to visit our Operations Center, I invite you to tour the facility the next time you are in the Seattle area. We welcome your interest and rely on your feedback to ensure that we are meeting — and, we hope, exceeding — your expectations.

The Operations Center is an essential part of our customer support commitment to you. We look forward to answering your in-service requests with speed, ease, and a positive attitude.